


Unforgivable

by Medie



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cordelia never truly comprehended why Angel carries such guilt about Angelus...she does now. Experience truly is most cruel of teachers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unforgivable

**Author's Note:**

> Cordy's reaction to her possession and the story arc involving the 'relationship' with Connor. I don't think any of the archive warnings apply, but you should be aware of that.

Her skin was a raw, angry red but still she kept scrubbing. With a fierce desperation, she rubbed the loofah across her arm, sobbing as she did so, ignoring her body's protest at the nearly scalding water and strength of her actions.

Images skittered through her mind, fragmented memories, and she shied away from them but they persisted. Snippets of images, sounds and moments in time...things she wished she could forget but were burned into her memory.

Connor's mouth on hers.

Connor's hands on her body.

Connor...

Cordelia shook her head violently, pressing her palms to her closed eyes, dropping the loofah and giving into the violent, heaving sobs that had been threatening.

Oh, God, Connor...

She'd...

_'It wasn't you,'_ Angel's voice came back to her, strangled and full of empathetic pain. He understood this, he understood the guilt, the pain, the grief, the sheer horror. He understood and that made it worse. He understood. 'You weren't the one...it wasn't really you...'

But it was her body that bore the marks, the scars, her mind that buckled under the weight of the agonizing realization of what they'd used her to do, what she was responsible for.

Angel's face surfaced from the maelstrom of memory, his expression as he tried to explain in those first moments, the emotions in his eyes mocking her. Agony, sympathy, anger, disgust - at her or at what they'd done to her, she wasn't sure - and worst of all - love. After it all, he still loved her.

Cordy groaned a "no" and thumped her palms against her forehead, tears springing afresh. How could she? She should have fought back, fought harder to stay in control, battled against them, but she hadn't. She'd lost and she'd destroyed so much around her. They'd used her to destroy so much.

The two most important people in her life...she'd hurt them. She'd nearly destroyed their relationship. She'd brought him back, turned him loose on the world.

The memories of holding an infant Connor, of singing to him, feeding him, rocking him when he cried, clashed violently with the fragmented memories of --

Cordelia bolted from the shower, dripping wet, and collapsed before the toilet, heaving violently. She felt as if her very soul, her very life, was trying to free her body, to find oblivion again. That had to be better than this. That had to be better than this.

Anything had to be better than this.

Mindlessly, she collapsed back against the wall, hand somehow finding a cloth to wipe at her mouth before throwing it aside. She drew her legs up against her body, hugging them desperately as she hid her face against her knees.

Not knowing who she was addressing - the Powers, God, whoever felt like listening - Cordelia begged.

"Just let me forget, let this go away, let me die...just make it stop..."

\-----

Each gasping sob, each word, each movement.

Everything Cordelia did.

Angel heard.

Sitting outside the bathroom, he leaned his head against the wall and paid silent vigil to her agony.

She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve to have to deal with this. She didn't deserve to be cursed, for the rest of her life, with the memory of the year that had passed. She didn't deserve any of this.

But she had it. She was dealing with it. It wasn't going away.

And he couldn't make it better.

Solemnly, Angel stared straight ahead, his mind replaying memories for him, things even Cordelia had yet to remember and his heart ached. She would remember in time, more and more, things would surface. An action, a sound, a comment, they would dredge up yet another horrific recollection, worse than the one before it and she would have to battle this pain all over again.

And it was his fault. She was close to him, she was a part of him, she meant everything to him and, for that reason, she had been a target for them. To destroy him they had done the one thing that would surely do it. They'd destroyed her and, in turn, they'd hurt Connor in the worst way. Destroyed his trust in someone who, however briefly, had been his mother.

Cordy hadn't brought him into existence but she'd been there for every moment that had come afterward. In his heart, in his deepest wishes, Angel had pretended - even if he could barely admit it to himself - that she was. That Connor was theirs.

Be careful what you wish for.

Age old saying took on a whole new meaning. He'd pretended they were a family and wished they were. It was that wish that had given them the opening. Provided a weakness. He'd forgotten that. In wishing for that, in pretending it was so, he'd let his guard down.

And Cordelia and Connor paid the ultimate price for his mistake.

Both would bear the scars of his mistake until the end of their days.

The sound of Cordelia's sobs beginning anew filled his hearing and he closed his eyes, wanting with everything he had to get up and go in there, to hold her and take her pain into himself, to free her of it. To let her rest, to convince her to forgive herself.

But he knew better.

She wouldn't let him, she wouldn't forgive herself and he understood why. He remembered how it felt, he was dealing with it himself, the people they loved had been hurt, deeply hurt, by actions that their bodies had performed, words their mouths had said. Whether their minds, their souls, were the ones behind those memories...that was irrelevant. They were still out there and when Connor looked at them both, when Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne, when they all looked at them both...that was who they saw...Whether they admitted it or not, that was who they saw.

And for the pain they all felt, no matter if they forgave them or not.

Neither Cordelia, or Angel, could forgive themselves.

They just couldn't.


End file.
